Wide Awake
by nerdangels
Summary: Peeta coming back to District Twelve was bittersweet, but at least she didn't have to be broken alone anymore. ONE-SHOT.


Peeta returning to his home in District Twelve had been a surprise to almost everyone, but none more so than Katniss Everdeen. Peeta coming back and feeling something other than murderous rage toward her was even more surprising; as well as both relieving and horrifying at the same time. The relief was obvious. Katniss needed someone to pull her out of the funk she had put herself in, someone who would motivate her to do something with herself. She had lacked any and all inspiration for that ever since Prim had… well, she just didn't have it. It was horrifying, though, because having him back meant that she didn't have any excuses anymore. Katniss had spent months (or maybe it had been years. She honestly couldn't tell you. Time had no meaning during that period of her life and the days seemed to blur and streak together and she couldn't tell where one ended and another began) living in an endless cycle of sleeping, waking, feeling sorry for herself and then sleeping again. It was a never ending cycle of self-inflicted abuse that she felt she deserved—after all it had been her fault Prim had died, it had been her fault Finnick had died, it had been her fault that Peeta was being shipped back and forth between the Capitol and District Thirteen trying to get the pieces of his mind sorted out and put back together.

It was bittersweet, though, having him back. On one hand Katniss felt a happiness that she hadn't felt in so long that her face felt like it was going to crack right in half every time she smiled. There was a happiness that only Peeta had ever been able to spark inside of her, a smile that only he was ever able to produce, and a feeling of comfort even in the worst situations that no one was ever going to be able to give her. He was back now, though, so maybe she could have them again. That wasn't the case though, and deep down she knew that. Peeta might have been physically back, but he wasn't mentally back. Not completely anyways. There were still parts of him that were Capitol created. Memories that had been implanted into his mind that he might not (and probably wouldn't) ever get over. He was never going to be her Peeta again—the one who would watch her pick dandelions after school, or remembered small details about her she didn't even remember, or loved her unconditionally—there were always going to be parts of him that were different. That was just the way things were now and she was going to have to accept it, no matter how much it hurt.

Katniss wasn't the same girl either, though. She had seen far too much hatred in the world, witnessed too many people getting hurt, caused too many deaths with the stupid rebellion. There had just been too much for her to be that girl again. Maybe that was why she was okay with letting herself waste away in that stretch of darkness between the end of the war and Peeta's homecoming. Katniss hated what she had become, but she hated why she was that way more than anything else. And Katniss was selfish. If she could go back and stop the rebellion and save her friends she would. There was a part of her – and that part was bigger than she cared to admit—who would gladly sacrifice everything if it meant having Prim back. Prim had been her light in the dark for so long and with that gone she had been left stranded in a black hallway. It was like she had been in a void between reality and a universe of 'what ifs' inside of her head, hands stretched out in front of her trying to grasp onto any piece of reality she could. Pieces of reality had been hard to come by during those days and Katniss often found her fingertips just brushing up against them, only to be swallowed by the darkness once again.

Then Peeta had showed up and it was like someone had switched on a lightbulb. Maybe Prim wasn't around to see what she was doing to herself anymore, but he was. And how was he ever going to love her again if he saw the she had given up on everything? She couldn't even believe in herself, how was she supposed to believe in him? She did, though. Despite how it may have looked and how she may have felt, Katniss had never fully given up on Peeta. Part of her had always held the pearl close to her head, clinging to it like a lifeline and trying to will its giver back to life. She knew it was impossible, but she couldn't help but hope. When Peeta started clearly showing that he needed her help she put her self-pity away and stepped up to the plate. Peeta had pulled her back from the edge one too many times for her to just sit back and let him continue to teeter over it any longer.

So they fell into a routine. She would help him and he would help her. They played countless games of Real or Not Real. He painted. She hunted. But most importantly they were together. And slowly, incredibly slowly, things had worked themselves up to the level they were at now. It had taken a lot of time and a lot of nerve on both of their parts to try and fight through the tangled web of debris that the Capitol had left behind. They had to work as a team – because they had always been a team, hadn't they?—and put the pieces of each other back. There wasn't anyone else who would be able to put Katniss back together, and vice versa. Some of the pieces might be jagged and the edges might not line up properly anymore, but more or less, they were okay. Or at least most days they were.

It had been a long day in District Twelve. The District was, for the most part, put back together, but there wasn't any shortage of things to be done around town. And Katniss wasn't one to just sit back and let others do it—besides; it had been her fault the bombs were dropped in the first place, right? The least she could do was clean up the mess. So that was what she had done all day. She had gone out with the rest of the rebuild team and worked on various projects across town. By the end of the day she had been so tired that all she really wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. Sleep was hard to come by for Katniss, so on the rare occasions that she was actually tired enough to sleep, she usually did so willingly, and almost as soon as she had gotten home she had climbed the stairs and burrowed in her bed, hiding away from the world.

Initially the sleep had been dreamless. It was calm and tranquil and nothing at all what Katniss was used too. Luck had never really been on her side though, had it? Even when it seemed like things were going right for her, life was always waiting on the other side of the tunnel to drop an anchor on that and keep her trapped in one place forever. Her dreams were no exception to that and what had started off as a peaceful vision of herself wandering through the woods quickly turned into an all too vivid flashback.

The unmistakable plait of blonde hair was easily seen from Katniss' hiding place. Something was wrong though. Prim—Prim shouldn't be there. She shouldn't be there, not now. Why was she there? Prim wasn't a soldier. She wasn't even a proper doctor. She should have never been let out of the safe walls of District Thirteen. Sure as hell shouldn't have been let right into the Capitol, practically hand delivered to Snow's front door. Katniss was calling down to her, trying to get her attention, tell her to run and that she shouldn't be there. It all happened too fast though. The parachutes were already falling and Katniss couldn't get to her in time. She couldn't save her—just like she couldn't save Peeta from being taken or Finnick from being killed by the mutts. She wasn't fast enough, she wasn't—

Just as the bombs went off, Katniss was pulled from unconsciousness. She was vaguely aware of Peeta's hand stroking her check soothingly as her own fingers clutched the front of his shirt, pulling herself closer to his chest. She repeated the words in her mind like a prayer as her shoulders shook with her cries. The shock of the dream had worn off and she wasn't even sure why she was crying anymore. She suspected it had something to do with the hallow feeling inside her when she realized that, yes, Prim was gone and, yes, Peeta could just as easily be taken from her too. She had already lost him once and they had barely survived it, she knew that if it happened again she would never get him back. Her face pressed into the space between his neck and his shoulder and she took a few shuddering breaths to stop the sobs as her eyes squeezed shut to cease the flow of tears. When she had finally stopped crying her body was still shaking and her grip on his shirt refused to loosen. "Sorry," she apologized quietly. "For waking you up," she clarified as she let out a deep breath through her mouth and kept her eyes shut.


End file.
